Review: BLUEBEARD'S CASTLE, Grimeborn Festival, Arcola Theatre

On the face of it, Béla Bartók's one act, one hour, expressionist opera seems ideal for a festival like Grimeborn - just the two singers, a minimal set and a terrific story to grab the attention. But, partly because it's sung in Hungarian (a most impenetrable of languages albeit with very clear surtitles), and partly because Green Opera incorporate their ethos into props that recycle what looks like the flotsam and jetsam of the Danube, it's hard to get a grip on the narrative, expecially its terrifying conclusion.

The tale centres on Judith, new bride of the mysterious Duke Bluebeard, a charismatic aristocrat with a dubious past. She, as operatic heroines are pretty much obliged to, has given up everything for him and now must make a life in a castle she finds too damp, too dark, too dismal. She demands to open seven internal doors, much against Bluebeard's advice. What she finds distresses her, excites her and ultimately imprisons her.

The music is sensational - Bartók's disturbing, disorienting score played brilliantly by a ten piece orchestra under the baton of John Paul Jennings, the Arcola's unforgiving space mastered. It really was an example of an opera in which you could confidently take your eyes away from the scrolling text for five minutes or more and let the music carry the emotions.

On the night I saw the production, Anastasia Inniss and Julian Debreuil played the couple and were well up to the challenge of singing the Hungarian libretto (though, as remarked above, one longed for a hint of French, German or Italian or even just a hint of those familiar speech rhythms to cling on to) and both act very well, a woman reluctantly embracing her fate and a man whose depravity is unravelled to his shame.

That said, director, Eleanor Burke, does rely on us to do a lot of the heavy lifting. Only one door is actually a door, with boxes, tables, a chandelier, a bed and other props substituting in Judith's nightmarishly bloody game of dungeons and dragons. It becomes tricky without the visual markers to retain the sense of continuity, of discovery, of dread that underpins the opera and leads to its conclusion which I felt too ambiguous (but only after I read up on the plot on the bus home). I had left thinking Bluebeard was a kind of Fred West serial killer who had been given a rather easy ride, but that may have been my grasping the wrong end of the stick - that's not really something you want to be unsure about though!

Within the constraints of a boutique opera and the company's ethos, Bluebeard's Castle gets a lot right. However, in a relatively obscure and underperformed work with which even opera fans may be unfamiliar, a stronger storytelling spine to establish the characters' actions, motivations and consequences would have been welcome.

Bluebeard's Castle is at the Arcola Theatre until 3 September and at the Asylum Chapel from 13 - 18 September

Photo: Nick Rutter

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